Look in Any Window

Flabby Paul Anna needs love but he's going about it all wrong. He is given a bunch of bad examples. All the adults are in love - with someone else's spouse.

Filmed in the San Fernando Valley town of Reseda. It used to be your basic lower middle class neighborhood. Now it is an absolute dump.

A heat wave in suburbia arouses a Southern California community. Feeling hot and not knowing what to do with it, bullied teenager Paul Anka (as Craig Fowler) becomes "The Masked Prowler" - actually, he's a "peeping Tom" sleazing out for looks at women who've been dressing down for the warm weather. Scaling fences in his tight tee-shirt and frightening mask, Mr. Anka is a hoot and a holler. His lack of sexual socialization skills may be due to poor parenting - specifically, they are flirty frustrated mother Ruth Roman (as Jackie Fowler) and alcoholic mechanic father Alex Nicol (as Jay Fowler). Anka's papa gets laid off and his mama gets laid on - by amorous and available neighbor Jack Cassidy (as Gareth Lowell)...

Newly arrived Italian widower George Dolenz (as Carlo) wants to take care of Mr. Cassidy's "lonesome" wife Carole Mathews (as Betty Lowell) while Anka aches to make their daughter Gigi Perreau (as Eileen Lowell) squeal on a trampoline. Hoping to catch Anka in action, veteran policemen Robert Sampson (as Lindstrom) and his amateur psychologist partner Dan Grayam (as Webber) investigate. It all leads to a boozy 4th of July pool party. This may your only chance to see the fathers of future "Screen Gems" contracted singer/actors Micky Dolenz (of "The Monkees") and David Cassidy (of "The Partridge Family") in the same film. You'll also hear Anka's relatively rare, moody "Look in Any Window" title song.

*** Look in Any Window (1/29/61) William Alland ~ Paul Anka, Ruth Roman, Alex Nicol, Carole Mathews

It's the suburbs and a peeping Tom is on the loose. He scares people with a disturbing mask. Craig Fowler (Paul Anka) is a disinterested teen and the only son of a loveless marriage.

Paul Anka may be a teenage music icon at the time but he's not a charismatic actor. Quite frankly, he would barely be cast as a supporting actor if not for his name. The problem is that he's way before my time and holds no nostalgic value for me. He's just another stiff amateur actor and he's not holding the screen. I do have to admire that a pop idol is willing to play a creepy character but nothing else.

A teenager terrorizes his neighborhood by prowling around at night wearing a mask.

Paul Anka plays Craig the troubled teen, he also sings the title song which takes on a weird creepy feeling when played while he wanders aimlessly around town , stopping to look at romance magazines. It was not a hit though Anka had several successful songs around that time. His mother is played by Ruth Roman, a sexy and flirtatious woman and his father is a weak alcoholic (Alex Nicol). There is also an odd couple pair of cops looking into the prowling case, one a veteran who believes in beating confessions out of suspects and his young partner who is more understanding since he studied psychology.

This is a strangely effective film is made more sleazy because of the low budget and being filmed in black and white. It is almost like a David Lynch film if he were making films in the early 1960s. It is hard to find, I own it on a VHS copy made by the video company The Fang. It was transferred from a jumpy 16mm copy. This is worth seeing if you like low budget films about the darker, more lurid side of suburbia in the 1960s.

People can comment all they want about this being low, sleazy, sensationalistic, et cetera, but I found it a very thought provoking and disturbing film. Paul Anka's character Craig Fowler seemed to be such a great symbol as the neighbor Carlo (played by George Dolenz) explains, of the evils of everyone who voyeurs hours away watching the lives of strange people the media tells us are so important. Craig is soon unmasked, and it tells the characters they are as guilty as he might be to give him bad examples that feed his endless urge to spy and pry. Citizen Kane might have given William Alland some material to use for this movie since he played a reporter there who was always watching the drama unfold with his back turned to hide what he looked like. Plus, it always gave me a tent pole in junior high school to watch Jack Cassidy kiss Ruth Roman in the car before they sped away to Las Vegas.